New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary • Hacker News Board

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#431

Post by lend000 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #389

lend000 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you potentially exert significant economic leverage over the potential employee The keywords here are 'potentially' and 'significant' -- the difference is that the state has absolute power over you and the fundamental rule of law protects your right to free speech in a public context. Private, consensually entered job offer negotations are a different thing altogether. Certainly, answering a question does not strip…

No, the state does not have absolute power over you. I'm not even going to engage with an argument based on a self-evidently false premise. The first amendment doesn't come with the 'strings attached' that you seem to think. There's a nice outline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... . Your hyperbolic example of "your money or your life" is clearly in the 'Fighting words' category, co…

> Trying to invalidate a counter-example directed at your by appealing to my priors is tantamount to an admission that you have no meaningful point.

No, it's not. I provided you with a list of exceptions to free speech in the United States, and your hyperbolic counter-example is clearly excluded by it, whereas a hiring manager asking a question about past salary is not. Are you able to find a category there that corresponds to simply asking what your previous salary was? If so, please share.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#432

Post by vkou » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #102

alistairSH wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent is discussing prior salaries. You are discussing requested salaries. If specifically asked "What is your current salary?" you would typically respond with the actual current salary, not your ideal new salary.

In this case the prior salary is used for anchoring purposes, by the expectation that the new salary should not be too much higher than the old salary. They're basically using it as a means to sanity check and calibrate their own assessment.

My first job paid me $25,000 CAD a year.

My next job paid me $90,000 CAD a year. (Investment bank)

My next job paid me $160,000 USD a year. (Google)

All numbers are all-in comp. All junior dev roles.

Should the bank, and Google have offered me $33,000 and $40,000, so that the new salary isn't too much higher then the old one? Would that satisfy your notion of fairness? When new grads hired by the latter are getting paid $150,000/year?

You are hired to do your new job, not the old one. What the old one paid has no relevance.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#433

Post by OrwellianChild » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

OrwellianChild wrote: post #401

clavalle wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. But every role has a range, more or less, which is a balance of the value that role creates vs the alternatives in the market. The range is due to factors such as the risk an individual embodies based on previous experience, demonstrable skill, references along with likely ramp up time based on those factors. To take a silly but illustrative example: if I'm looking for a javascript developer, I don't c…

Hit thread limit, but I'm asking about @clavalle's ranges here: How often does your eventual accepted offer land at the high end of your offered range? How often at the low end? I ask, because it often seems unproductive to negotiate within-range on merits. If you're willing to pay up to X, I as a candidate am going to expect that amount. Anything less is letting you, the employer, capture the surplus...

Replying to @clavalle... Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I appreciate the chance to engage on this!

I understand the concept of probabilistic valuation of risks/opportunities of a given candidate, and if that were practically quantifiable in the real world, I agree that it would represent a sound way to price an offer (provided you also factored in the cost of losing a candidate and having to put more resources towards finding an equivalent or better candidate)... [1]

Unfortunately, in practice, a candidate has to be evaluated more coarsely as "good enough to hire" or "not good enough to hire". There's no way you could in good conscience employ someone who couldn't do the work - even if they came at a discount. That means that there definitely is budget surplus any time you hire someone at less than your maximum budget. There is a fixed amount you're able to pay to get the work done, and that is at the max of your budget range.

Strategically, then, the max of the range offered represents the minimum a qualified candidate should target in a negotiation... Your mileage may vary, of course, with the skill of the negotiator.

[1] By the way, I highly recommend Algorithms to Live By for an interesting discussion around the use of such methods in practice.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#434

Post by krenden9 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:19 PM UTC

j2bax wrote: post #320

krenden9 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because deceit runs through my soul and my heart is as black as damask cloth. The fact that I want to be paid what I feel I should and can be paid has no bearing on my performance and attitude at work. If you were to speak to any of my past employers, they would probably use the same sideways compliment my high school calc teacher wrote on a college recommendation: "brilliant, but like lightning in a bottle." Yo…

Honesty and integrity are pretty high on the list of qualities I like in people I associate and work with. The fact that you would conspire with your previous employer to artificially prop your value up and then tell a bold faced lie in an interview, does make it seem like you are not above doing whatever it takes to get what YOU want and feel you deserve.

> make it seem like you are not above doing whatever it takes to get what YOU want and feel you deserve.

Absolutely true. I'm also not an idiot and I apply this technique selectively. If I have to prevaricate to get something I want in a business setting, I have no problem with that. It's business, not a church confessional. However, when I'm at a company I align my desires with theirs and we BOTH get what we want.

Honesty and integrity in a corporate environment is a myth. To succeed you just have to project an illusion of those qualities. This is especially true higher up in the ranks.

Do you think your manager would tell you you're being laid off after having asked him? Hell no! He'll lie by omission or commission to save his skin. Is that honesty? Is there integrity in it? No! It's business. Get off your high horse.

My life goal is to retire early so no one fucking tells me what to do with my time. It's working out so far, so I see no need to change my means.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#435

Post by gdulli » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:24 PM UTC

kesselvon wrote: post #312

gdulli wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employees literally have zero incentive not to lie, since employers can't verify That assumes you feel lying is wrong only because of the circumstances of getting caught vs. valuing honesty for its own sake.

Morals are nice, but if you're being underpaid purely based on your previous salary vs actual worth, then it doesn't do you much good except to feel good.

If I'm underpaid it's because I took a job with bad pay. Presumably because I failed to demonstrate I was worth more, was incorrect about being worth more, or I chose to accept an offer that didn't match my value.

I can take personal responsibility for any of those scenarios. Transparency is not the root cause of them. Taking responsibility is in general a better option than assigning blame. Acting in bad faith because of perceived bad faith just feeds into a downward spiral that makes the world worse for everyone. You don't act right because it feels good, there are practical reasons for it.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#436

Post by krenden9 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:34 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #371

j2bax wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could simply say, "I prefer not to disclose that information". If a potential employer continues to push you to make the first offer, you can dodge the bullet and walk away with your integrity intact. Personally, I never ask a candidate what they previously made. I do occasionally ask what their salary expectations are, but only when someone has applied that I perceive as far overqualified for the position the…

I find it so weird to see a lone person here defending integrity. Capitalism, the kind that enables startup culture, is built on trust. Starting an employment relationship with a lie is not good way to build trust. I don't think employers should ask this, and they do employees should hold it against them. Employees shouldn't disclose it unless they want too. Anyone lying about this or anything else in the all too bri…

> Capitalism, the kind that enables startup culture, is built on trust.

I see you've never run a business, because that kind of textbook ideation of capitalism is not practiced in the real world. If you'd been paying attention to labor conditions under capitalism in the US, you'd know that trust is the exception. Child labor, sweatshops, discrimination, wage theft, monopolies, companies colluding to fix wages - these happen in most economic systems. As a worker you can level the playing field by engaging in behaviors in the same vein. Do it, or you'll lose.

Fiat monetary systems are built on trust. Economic philosophies are not.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#437

Post by matwood » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #372

matwood wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you just say "around" and add 20% to your current salary. And even if a company does find out, who cares? What I made at a prior job has zero bearing on my next job. If the new company thinks I bring in enough value to be paid X, then they paying X should be fine.

Our internal recruiters ask but it's not a deal breaker if someone doesn't answer. You know what is a deal breaker? Lying. I've personally seen two offers rescinded after it came out that someone added an egregious amount of money to their previous salary (one to the effect of made approx $100k, said they made $185 and took $175 while complaining loudly about their "pay cut"). What sucks for them is: A) Everyone invo…

Wait, so you were ready to pay someone 175k until you found out they only made 100k at their last job and rescinded the offer? How about name the company so people can make sure to avoid them. I hope this company also lists their internal budget for every position, since you know we want to all be honest and everything.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#438

Post by andy_boot » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:58 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #414

OJFord wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most employers don't ask In the UK, they don't need to. > It's great that NYC is taking the lead on this, and I really hope the rest of the US follows suit. There's a lot of positive remarks in this thread, that I don't really understand. I see the advantage if your current salary is unusually low, but it cuts both ways: without knowledge of the company, (and within an industry) salary contains more information tha…

> In the UK, they don't need to. Yeah they just phone your reference and ask. Sigh.

and the reference will tell them to get stuffed. Leaking salary details of employees to a competitor will get you fired.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#439

Post by clavalle » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC

OrwellianChild wrote: post #433

OrwellianChild wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hit thread limit, but I'm asking about @clavalle's ranges here: How often does your eventual accepted offer land at the high end of your offered range? How often at the low end? I ask, because it often seems unproductive to negotiate within-range on merits. If you're willing to pay up to X, I as a candidate am going to expect that amount. Anything less is letting you, the employer, capture the surplus...

Replying to @clavalle... Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I appreciate the chance to engage on this! I understand the concept of probabilistic valuation of risks/opportunities of a given candidate, and if that were practically quantifiable in the real world, I agree that it would represent a sound way to price an offer (provided you also factored in the cost of losing a candidate and having to put more resources tow…

> There's no way you could in good conscience employ someone who couldn't do the work

Oh, if it was only so simple as 'can do the work' | 'cannot do the work'!

It is, of course, a very course and rough estimate but it is more like 'This person is likely to be great! They will not only do the work but surprise and delight me and pull our organization forward more solidly and quickly then we even hoped. We are lucky they happened to be looking just at the time we need their skills!' or 'This person looks like a good candidate but they tend to jump jobs on a yearly basis and has experience in C# rather than Java much less Scala but we've been looking for a while and we really need to get started and they seem smart enough to get up to speed.'

Point is, it's a complicated process with complicated factors.

Also, there is the wider market to consider. If I don't think a candidate can go out and get another job for the same price or more, I am unlikely to offer a premium on top of that market price.

So I have to disagree; skilled jobs are not binary in nature -- the max of the range offered represents how much a top tier candidate that fits well with the position should target. For those others without the same risk/reward profile or market power, they will have to keep from overselling themselves and take those factors into account.

If you like Algorithms to Live By, I think you'd enjoy 'How to Measure Anything' which really gets into the nitty gritty of how to reduce uncertainty and how even modest reductions can lead to much more solid decisions with these kinds of inherently fuzzy and complex problems.

Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary

#440

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

showmethemoney wrote: post #200

Once upon a time I interviewed for a role in NYC. An employee that I spoke to said they paid pretty well, and I could expect about 120. The HR person wanted my previous salary, and I refused. Eventually they said their range was 130-150. I said it wasn't gonna work cause I was looking for something more like 220. They said okay we can do that no problem. My previous salary was 110.

[deleted]